Boy George

As an outsider, you don't think of Australia as being old-fashioned - it's only when you've been here for a period of time when you realise there are issues. ”

When Culture Club broke up, I hadn't been going out a lot because we'd been working all the time, so I suddenly had this period of leisure. And it was just around the time that the whole acid house thing kicked off in London. ”

Remember that I was out of the closet at the age of sixteen. My parents knew I was gay; I'd had to tell them. ”

People say things about me all the time and I get over it. I've had some appalling things told about me. ”

There are lots of things about me that have changed. Some things are a process; some things take time. ”

Sometimes, having a reputation can be the best thing because people expect you to be really difficult, perhaps a bit caustic, and hard work - and I'm none of those things. ”

I wanted people not to care about whether you were gay, straight, black, white, transgender, whatever it may be... That being said, there's more work to be done... I still want to change the world, absolutely. ”

A lot of people felt I was getting work because I was Boy George. My response at the time was that there's a lot of DJs making records, they're not all making good records, but they have the right to do that. ”

I didn't think anyone was going to buy 'Do You Really Wanna Hurt Me?' It was really personal, not a hit record, I thought. I wanted us to sound completely different. Shows how much I knew. ”

I suppose there is a lot of toughness in me. ”